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| Title | Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties |
| Developer | Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio |
| Publisher | Sega |
| Release Date | February 12th, 2026 |
| Genre | Action Adventure |
| Platform | Switch 2, PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC |
| Age Rating | Mature 17+ |
| Official Website | |
Yakuza 3 was always a unique Yakuza/Like a Dragon game since Kiryu spends so much time helping out kids at an orphanage, rather than his usual yakuza antics. Despite being so unique, it was a very important entry in the series. Kiryu’s love for the kids he took care of at Morning Glory is constantly mentioned and brought up in future series entries. It’s his foundation going forward; why he does what he does. My first time playing Yakuza 3 was the Remastered version on PS4 back when they released the trilogy of Yakuza 3, 4 and 5 Remastered together. Seeing as the prequel, Yakuza 0, and then the remakes and ports of all the other games on PS4 were how I got into Yakuza and played them all for the first time, yes I did go straight from Kiwami 2 to 3 Remastered. To be honest, it was extremely jarring. I thought playing 0, my first Yakuza, for the very first time, felt clunky when trying to use Kiryu specifically. But Yakuza 3’s original gameplay was a whole new level of clunky. I remember the first big boss fight being super tiring. He was constantly blocking and trying to get through it with hardly any skills or other battle improvements unlocked yet was difficult. However, once I got past this, and put the game down for a little while, I had a ton of fun playing it afterwards. I had very little trouble with battles going forward and the story was super charming. Seeing as I’ve still only played the PS4 games in the series, Yakuza 3 is the very first one I’ve experienced both in its original form, and its Kiwami remake. So, what did I think?
Well first off, let’s talk about how Yakuza Kiwami 3 plays compared to the others. Obviously, the game is still an action game where you actively beat up your opponents. No, they didn’t suddenly decide to make this one a turn-based RPG or anything of that sort. In the remake though, instead of just the usual modified Dragon of Dojima original fighting style, Kiryu also gets a new Ryukyu Style. This new fighting style gives you a shield and an arsenal of weapons to pull out depending on which button you press and whether or not you hold the button down for a bit. I found this new version of the original fighting style and the new Ryukyu option to be okay. They’re not my favorite fighting styles I’ve ever experienced in Yakuza, but they work.
In addition to the remade original game’s story, we also get the new Dark Ties add-on starring Mine. Mine’s story is only a few chapters long and moves along pretty quickly; I wouldn’t call it a whole game like how it’s been advertised. Still, I do find that I really enjoy when they add these extra bits for beloved Yakuza antagonists. Well, I don’t know if I’d actually call Mine beloved, but he did for some reason end up my second favorite antagonist throughout the whole series. My first favorite is obviously still Majima. It’s nice to see a little bit more about Mine and how he got into the Tojo Clan. Also, you’re able to do quite a few of the side minigames as Mine too. Plus, he has own big side thing with doing good deeds around town to raise Kanda’s reputation, and then there’s the Hell’s Arena. Hell’s Arena doesn’t just contain coliseum fights for Mine, there’s also this part where there are mazes full of enemies you have to get through and survive. Each stage gets gradually more difficult.
Kiryu’s portion of the game still follows him going to Okinawa with Haruka to run Morning Glory and taking care of the various orphan kids who become his new family. A lot has changed, though. One major issue I have with Kiwami 3 is the immense amount of cut out content, rather than being properly remade. In replacing how you bonded with the kids at Morning Glory before with a whole new life sim system, including cooking, farming and selling products you grow or even sew, stuff on that end has changed significantly. As I got further in the game, I realized they didn’t just cut out substories. Certain bonding events I remembered having with the kids, through old substories or however else they had implemented them before, felt missing. Although, I should mention I didn’t 100% the orphanage stuff. I reached all the story milestones for Morning Glory, but I didn’t max out Kiryu’s relationship with every kid. So some of what I thought was missing might have been mixed in there. But there was also one big, previously mandatory, orphanage story event I didn’t see come up and it just felt lacking.
While I’m discussing cut content, let’s now focus on the substories. Yes, a huge chunk of substories have been cut this time around. I looked at the achievements available for doing substories and while Yakuza 3 Remastered has an achievement for completing 80 substories, and then of course the final achievement for completing them all, Kiwami 3’s achievements only go as high as 20 substories and I believe in game I saw a total goal of around 30. This is clearly a significantly smaller amount that’s been included in the new game. I do not agree with a remake cutting the amount of content that RGG cut out in Yakuza Kiwami 3. Honestly, they should’ve called this game Yakuza 3 Reimagined, because that’s what it felt like, exactly like a certain other recently “reimagined” game. Only this time, without it being made clear that this is what we were getting. Do keep in mind though, I have never played the original PS2 versions of Yakuza 1 and 2, only their Kiwami remakes on PS4. So I don’t actually know if this was par for the course or not. Yes, I do know some stuff was changed in those games in comparison to the originals, but I don’t know if it was as drastic as Kiwami 3’s changes are.
Another issue I had with the game was how it looked. I know when the demo came out, many fans online were complaining about how bad things looked and the wonky lighting. I believe RGG and/or Sega said that this would be fixed in the full game. I didn’t get to experience the demo myself since it wasn’t available on PS4. Nonetheless, I still found the full game to have some weird issues visually. Like in Okinawa during the daytime for example, it felt oddly dim. The sun is shining and bright when you look up at the sky, yet somehow it was still dim below that. Kiryu’s skin, for example, didn’t look as light it should with bright sun shining on him. He had more of an orange glow, like you’d experience in a dimmer, more sunset type of lighting. Also, there was one part of the story where he was having a drink with Miyazato, and the glasses they were drinking out of weren’t just transparent because they’re glass, they looked like some incomplete model that was left unfinished. They were transparent in a flat and, just not right, kind of way.
Overall, I found Yakuza Kiwami 3 to be an okay, average Yakuza game. It wasn’t horrendous, I had some fun with it, but it doesn’t have the same charm that won me over by the end of Yakuza 3 Remastered. I found myself quickly burnt out and feeling like it lost all of the charm Yakuza 3 used to have, which would’ve sucked me back in. But I did enjoy Mine’s side story chapters in Dark Ties. Funny enough, I prefer his new fighting style they came up with over Kiryu’s. Mine was a lot more fun to play as when it came to fighting thugs across Kamurocho. Sadly, that simply isn’t enough to recommend Kiwami 3 over the original Yakuza 3 experience should you only want to play one of the two. It is fun in its own right, yet it’s lacking in too many other ways and for that, I was disappointed. I simply cannot say that every Yakuza fan would love this one.
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